ENTER Hermione
by RoseWillow
Summary: This is the story of how Hermione finds out about the wizarding world and her magical abilities! *Chapter 2 FINALLY up*
1. Default Chapter

Summary: Not your normal HP fanfic. This is the story of Hermione's discovery of the wizarding world and her witchcrafting abilities. And *gasp* there's NO Harry Potter in this one, except for mentionings of him. How odd! I hope you like it. And remember to review!  
  
Rating: G  
  
Disclaimer: Anything that belongs to J.K. Rowling is not mine. That sentence makes way too much sense.  
  
ATTENTION: I had to make up several things in this story, including the Muggle school, Mr. And Mrs. Granger's first names, etc. I hope you don't mind.  
  
~*~  
  
"Could you tell me what room Dr. Granger is in?" Hermione twisted a strand of her curly hair impatiently, scowling.  
  
"Which one, dear?" The secretary, subbing in for Mrs. Progi, obviously didn't know who Hermione was. Hermione hoped that the young woman didn't think that Hermione was angry with her.  
  
"Either one, it doesn't matter," Hermione sighed.  
  
"Er, alright, Dr. Phillip Granger is in Room 103." Said the secretary, somewhat puzzled. Nodding, Hermione started off down the hallway.  
  
"Thank you," she called over her shoulder indifferently, having remembered her manners. She walked, or rather stomped, down the narrow corridor. One hand clenched an envelope, the seal broken. Hermione glanced down at it and only narrowly avoided walking into a wall as her eyes filled with angry tears. She wiped them away furiously with her free hand, and turned a corner to face a door with a simple black "103" printed on the wood. She listened for a moment, and after hearing voices behind the door, knocked twice.  
  
"Dad?" The door opened and a tall man in scrubs and a doctor's mask stood before Hermione. His eyes looked at her incredulously from behind thick eyeglasses.  
  
"Hermione!" came his voice from behind the plastic mask. "What are you doing here?"  
  
"I. I have to talk to you," said Hermione, her voice wavering as tears threatened to spill again. Behind Dr. Granger was a nurse, standing by a teenage boy in the dentist's chair, prevented from moving by a large machine of some sort connected to his mouth. The nurse approached the door.  
  
"Doctor, I can continue if you need a few minutes," offered the nurse. Phillip nodded and pulled down his mask to his neck. Then he turned to the boy.  
  
"Michael, Nurse Emily is going to finish up and then your parents will come to take you home." The boy nodded as much as he was able, and Dr. Granger stepped out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him. Noticing Hermione's tearstained face, his puzzled look changed to one of sympathy.  
  
"Honey, what's wrong?" He asked. Silently, Hermione handed the envelope to her father. He withdrew a paper from it.  
  
"Dear applicant," he read, "we at Kensington Academy must regret to inform you that." he trailed off, reading silently. "Oh dear."  
  
"I didn't get in," Hermione summarized the lengthy letter with four simple words.  
  
~*~  
  
(Author's Note: I added this last part because I thought, and so did other people, that this first chapter was too short. So here's a little bit of length to add to it.)  
  
Hermione sat glumly on a plastic seat on the train headed home. Holding her head in a hand, she thought about her summer. She'd spent the entire two months fantasizing about Kensington Academy, about how well she'd fit in there and about leaving her old school behind her. And the stuffy, snobby officials had rejected her, for "undisclosed reasons!" Hermione decided that when she got home she would burn all the files, essays and information that she was going to bring to Kensington. For the remainder of the train ride, she was slightly cheered.  
  
She signaled a taxi-cab after getting off the train. The driver, a middle- aged man with slightly graying hair, looked at her curiously but didn't query about the reasons for an eleven-year-old alone in the city. As they drove through Hermione's neighborhood, she couldn't help but groan at the pubic school they were passing - the one Hermione would inevitably have to go to.  
  
The cabby must have heard her, because he asked lightly, "Don't want to go back to school, huh?"  
  
Hermione looked up, surprised. "Actually, it's not school that bothers me, it's just." she trailed off.  
  
"It's just you don't fit in. Nothing seems to feel right for you." the cabby answered her statement for her.  
  
"That's exactly it! Are you a psychic or something?" Hermione asked, amazed. The cabby laughed.  
  
"Something like that," he replied.  
  
The taxi arrived at Hermione's house. She got out and handed a twenty-pound note to the driver through the passenger's seat window. As the cabby opened a drawer to get her change, Hermione noticed several strange coins, a few bronze, two silver and one that looked like it was made of gold. She looked away, shrugging mentally, and put it out of her mind. 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter summary: Hermione finds out she's a witch!  
  
Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns the characters, the idea, blah blah blah.  
  
Rating: G Again! Yay!  
  
~*~  
  
"Hermione! Are you awake, dear?" Judy Granger called up the stairs to her daughter's bedroom.  
  
"Yes, Mum! Is something wrong?" Hermione chided herself silently for asking a redundant question. From the tone of her mother's voice, something was obviously amiss.  
  
"Well. Could you come down here, please?" Judy turned back to her husband, who was sitting at the dining room table, his breakfast untouched and cold. Hermione came down the steps two at a time, a slight frown on her face.  
  
"What's going on?" She asked tentatively. Her father looked up at her sternly.  
  
"Did you apply to another school, and not tell us?" His voice was both quizzical and confused.  
  
"No, Dad. not besides Kensington. Why?" Now Hermione was confused as well.  
  
"We received this letter in the mail this morning," Judy said, picking up a strange-looking letter from the table. She handed it to Hermione, who turned it over to see that the old-fashioned wax seal, with some sort of fancy letter on it, had already been broken. The paper was thick, like parchment. There was, oddly, no stamp. The address was correct, right down to the spelling of Hermione's name, which was hard for most. Puzzled, Hermione withdrew the letter inside, which was of the same heavy material as the envelope. The heading of the letter was all Hermione had to read before she dropped the letter in shock.  
  
"Do you know about this?" Judy asked sternly.  
  
"Do I know? Of course I know!" Hermione was ecstatic, she picked the letter up again and skimmed through it. "All the fairy tales, all the stories. true! All true! Did you read it? Did you read the letter?"  
  
"No, we were waiting for you," Judy said, giving Hermione an odd look. Phillip took the letter from her outstretched hand and read it thoroughly.  
  
"Are you sure it's not a hoax or something? From kids at your school, maybe?" Phillip could just not get a hold of this. "No, no, it's no hoax. My classmates aren't this advanced," Hermione said, still smiling.  
  
"But-" said Judy.  
  
"Mum, I've read about these schools. They're said to be just myths but it's real! You know the stories, about witches and wizards and how they have an entire secret world? Well, now we're a part of that! I'm a witch!" Hermione said it all in one breath, her grin widening as she spoke, if that was possible.  
  
"Look!" Exclaimed Phillip, pointing out the window. Just outside, tapping on the glass with a talon, was an owl - nearly five hours after sunrise! Hermione ran to the window and opened it, and the owl flew in and seated itself casually on the table. Hermione gave her parents an 'I told you so' look.  
  
"It says, 'We await your owl by no later than August 31,'" said Judy, having picked up the letter again.  
  
"What's the name of the school? Pig-something?" asked Phillip.  
  
"Hogwarts," said Judy and Hermione simultaneously. Hermione took a piece of paper and a pen and began to scrawl a quick note.  
  
"I have no idea what I'm doing," she said to herself as she wrote. She then folded the paper twice and handed it to the owl, who took it in its beak and promptly flew out the open window.  
  
"What did you write?" Asked Judy, no more than curious. Hermione shrugged.  
  
"Just that I was happy to be accepted, but that I had no idea how to get there.. I'm hoping they'll answer soon." Hermione was past excitement now, past happiness - all her dreams, though not specifically about a wizarding school, were coming true.  
  
~*~  
  
Hermione walked up the stairs slowly, deep in thought. For the past three days, she could not take her mind off of the letter, the school, and the fact that she was a part of it. She opened her bedroom door to find an owl, though not the same one as the previous encounter's, perched on top of her computer, watching the screen saver upside-down with much interest. Hermione took another step inside and the owl looked up at her, its piercing eyes seeming to go right through her. It stuck out its right talon, onto which another piece of parchment was attached. Hermione crossed the room and untied the string which held the letter to the owl's claw, and unfolded it excitedly.  
  
"Dear Miss Granger, I am pleased that you seem so calm about your acceptance to Hogwarts. Many muggle-born students don't understand as well as you have. To get your supplies (you must have seen the list attached to the acceptance letter) you must go to the Leaky Cauldron on 3rd street of London. Tell the bartender your business and he will help you. Attached is your train ticket, it has all the details you need. Don't be late! Best Wishes, Minerva McGonagall  
  
Except the train ticket wasn't exactly 'attached' - it fell off the paper and Hermione had to make a swooping backward-hand catch to retrieve it. She read its contents, and it seemed like a normal train ticket except for one thing - it read "Platform 9 ¾," which had to be either a mistake or magic. Magic, Hermione thought, how strange it is to finally accept it as something real. She looked up from the letter and saw that the owl, still present, was now tapping curiously at the keys on the keyboard with it's claws, and watching the screen, which had a word processor open, fill up with letters. It looked fascinated.  
  
"I suppose there are no computers in the wizarding world, are there?" She asked, half to the owl and half to herself. 


End file.
